Monday, July 23, 2012

The Story of Anatoly Onoprienko

Unwanted Overtime

Map of the Ukraine (AP)

Ukraine is the second largest country in
Europe after Russia, and it is located in the eastern quadrant. The
country has rarely stood alone and has been subjugated at one time or
another by Poland, Lithuania and Russia. The population of the Ukraine
is estimated to be approximately 50 million.
The
territory of the Ukraine is mostly a level, treeless plain, except for
the Crimean Mountains in the Crimean peninsula and the Carpathians in
the west. The climate is moderate and winters are relatively mild with
no severe frosts. Because of these positive climatic conditions, the
Ukraine is by tradition an agricultural area. They grow wheat, maize,
buckwheat and a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. The Ukraine is
also one of the world's main centers of sugar production.
The
country is also rich in natural resources, such as iron ore, coal,
various metal ores, oil, gas, etc., and has a variety of industries
concentrated mostly in and around big cities, such as Kiev, Zaporozhye,
Dnepropetrovsk, and Dnyeprodzerzhinsk. They produce planes and ships,
cars, buses, locomotives, computer and electronic equipment, precision
instruments, agricultural machines, and various other consumer goods.
Odessa, Sebastopol, Nickolayev, Kherson and Kerch are the Ukraines main
ports.
A massive Soviet military base once dominated
the town of Yavoriv, located in Western Ukraine, but after the end of
the Cold War, the base has been cut in size, and religion now dominates
the area. Nobody works Sunday, much less Easter Sunday. Nobody, that is,
except the police, for whom any holiday means double shifts and
unwanted overtime.
Investigator Igor Khuney usually
has Sundays off, however by 10:00 in the morning on April 7, 1996, he
was on his beat in the military housing area as part of an added holiday
detail. At the precinct house a few kilometers across town, Khuney's
boss, Deputy Police Chief Sergei Kryukov, was sitting in his office,
stirring his fifth cup of tea that day. He'd been at work since midnight
the previous day and was trying his best to stay alert. Both men were
prepared for a long evening holidays always mean more public drinking
and, subsequently, more work for police Neither police officer had the
faintest idea that, within a matter of hours, he would be involved in
the arrest of a suspect in one the worst series of murders in modern
history. Nor did the two have any idea that they would get no credit for
their work.

A Killer Unmasked

Sometime around noon Officer Khuney received a strange call
from a man by the name of Pyotr Onoprienko. According to Pyotr, he had
recently stumbled upon a stash of weapons hidden in his home. He had
suspected that they belonged to his live-in cousin, Anatoly Onoprienko,
and ordered him to pack up and move. Anatoly had become enraged at his
cousin's accusations and told Pyotr that he better watch out, because he
would take care of his cousin's family on Easter. Obviously fearing
for the safety of his family, Pyotr wanted Khuney to investigate the
threat. Pyotr told the investigator that his cousin had recently moved
in with a woman and her child in the nearby town of Zhitomirskaya. The
information about the suspicious character from the Zhitomirskaya
intrigued Kryukov, who had just read a police report about a 12-gauge,
Russian-made Tos-34 hunting rifle the type used in a recent local
killing had been reported stolen in the Zhitomirskaya area.
"It
was a long shot, but I thought, here we've got an armed guy from
Zhitomirskaya, and a weapon missing. And we don't have too many people
from Zhitom come here," said Kryukov. "If I hadn't gotten the (tip)
that morning, I might never have considered it. But as it was, I had to
think about it." Concerned, Kryukov quickly called superiors in the
Lviv police headquarters for advice on how to proceed. Lviv police
chief, General Bogdan Romanuk, instructed Kryukov to form a task force
and conduct a search of Anatoly Onoprienko's apartment.
Within
an hour, over 20 patrolmen and detectives were assembled, and the group
set off for Ivana Khristitelya Street in unmarked cars. The suspect
shared an apartment there with a Yavoriv hairdresser "Anna" and her two
children. The exits to the suspect's building were blocked with
unmarked cars and two men guarded the fourth and second floors. The
remaining investigators surrounded the building. Khuney, Kryukov and
patrolman Vladimir Kensalo then approached the suspect's door.

Anatoly Onoprienko mugshot

Kryukov had no idea whether Anna and her two children
were home. Unbeknown to investigators, they were at church, and Anatoly
Onoprienko, whom the children now called "Dad", was expecting them home
any minute. When Kryukov rang the doorbell, Onoprienko assumed that it
was Anna and opened the door without hesitation. To his surprise, he
was quickly subdued and handcuffed. As Kryukov looked around the
suspect's apartment, he noticed an Akai stereo in the living room. The
stereo caught his eye because a Novosad family, recently murdered in
nearby Busk on March 22, 1996, had a similar stereo, which was reported
missing by family members shortly after their murder. "I had a list,
which I always carried around, of certain items that had been reported
missing, their makes and serial numbers," said Kryukov. "And the Akai
matched the Busk crime scene."
When police asked
Onoprienko for his identification, he led them to a closet. As an
investigator opened the closet door, Onoprienko dove for a pistol he had
previously hidden inside. Regardless of his efforts, he was quickly
subdued and unable to get to it in time. The pistol, as it would turn
out, was the second piece of evidence it had been stolen from a murder
scene in Odessa. Realizing the seriousness of the situation,
investigators escorted Onoprienko back to police headquarters and began a
comprehensive search of the premises. By the end of the day, 122
items, belonging to numerous unsolved murder victims were recovered from
the scene, including a sawed-off Tos-34 rifle.
As
the search at Ivana Khristitelya Street was winding down, Anna came
home. "She understood that something serious had happened, and asked me
what was going on," Kryukov said. "There was nothing to do. I took her
aside and said, 'Do you remember those killings in Bratkovichi?' and
she broke down crying.

Silence

Although they had a mountain of material evidence, Kryukov
needed a confession. Nonetheless, Onoprienko immediately made it clear
that he was not interested in talking. When Kryukov confronted him with
the facts, Onoprienko showed little reaction and just smiled. I'll talk
to a general, but not to you, he said.�
Yavoriv's
lead investigator, Bogdan Teslya, had not been involved in the arrest or
initial search. At the time of the operation, he had been at home
relaxing with his family. Shortly after the search at Onoprienko's
apartment was finished, at approximately 9:00 at night, he got a phone
call from Kryukov asking him to come in and handle the interrogation.
Teslya was considered by Khuney and other investigators to be the best
interrogator in the area, because of his personality and ability to
speak calmly with suspects.
At police headquarters,
Onoprienko had waived his right to an attorney and continued to remain
silent. Despite his announcement that he would speak to no one below the
rank of general, Teslya considered it imperative to try to get as much
information as he could. I was terrified that it would go wrong, he
said. In this kind of case, you never know what will happen. He might
hang himself in his cell by the next morning, and then you'd never be
able to really close the case. We needed to get him to speak. Beginning
at 10 p.m., Teslya sat alone in an interrogation room with Onoprienko
while they waited for an Interior Ministry general to arrive from Lviv,
and tried to get him to talk about himself.
Onoprienko
was silent at first, but in the second half hour of questioning began
to talk about his life, telling Teslya that he had been born in the town
of Laski in the Zhitomirskaya Oblast. He told Teslya his mother had
died when he was very young and that his father had put him into a
Russian orphanage. Onoprienko talked at length about this, saying he was
still angry that his father gave him away, but kept his older brother.
Onoprienko said that he felt that his father and brother could easily
have taken care of him, Teslya said. He was moved and upset to talk
about it. Following this line of questioning, Teslya then asked
Onoprienko whether he ever felt resentment toward families. Onoprienko
hesitated briefly and then shook his head before restating that he would
not talk to anyone below the rank of general.
At
that point, I tried something new, Teslya said. I said to him, 'We'll
get you your general. We'll get 10 generals if you want. But how am I
going to look if I bring them in here and you've got nothing to tell
them? Because maybe there's nothing to tell. How will I look then? And
that's when he said it. He said, Don't worry. There's definitely
something to tell.

Confessions of Madness

Shortly after 11 p.m., Teslya left the room and went into
the corridor, where General Romanuk was waiting. After a brief recess,
the two men and Romanuk's assistant, Maryan Pleyukh, entered the room,
and Onoprienko began his confession.�
He first
admitted that he had stolen the shotgun, and then admitted that he had
used it in a recent murder. Onoprienko confessed to investigators that
he killed for the first time in 1989. He had met a friend, Sergei
Rogozin, at a local gym where the two worked out. The two hit it off and
began spending much of their time together and their friendship
eventually turned into a partnership of crime. They began robbing homes
as a way to supplement their meager incomes.�
However,
one night while robbing a secluded home outside of town, the owners
discovered the two intruders. Armed with weapons they carried for
self-defense, the two felt that killing the family was necessary in
assuring their freedom. Hence, in covering up their tracks, they
murdered the entire family two adults and eight children. Onoprienko
informed investigators that he broke all ties with Sergei a few months
later and shot and killed five people, including an 11-year-old boy, who
were sleeping in a car. He then burned their bodies. I was approaching
the car only to rob it, he said. I was a completely different person
then. Had I known there had been five people, I would have left. He said
he had derived no pleasure from the act of the killing. Corpses are
ugly, he said. They stink and send out bad vibes. After I killed the
family in the car, I sat in the car with their bodies for two hours not
knowing what to do with them. The smell was unbearable.
Following
the murders, Onoprienko kept to himself for several years and moved in
with a distant cousin, before he killed again on December 24, 1995. That
night, he broke into the secluded home of the Zaichenko family, located
in Garmarnia, a village in central Ukraine. He murdered the forestry
teacher, along with his wife and two young sons, with a sawed-off,
double-barreled shotgun. He then escaped with the couples wedding rings,
a small golden cross on a chain, earrings, and a bundle of worn
clothes. Before leaving the scene of the crime, he set the home ablaze. I
just shot them. It's not that it gave me pleasure, but I felt this
urge, he said. From then on, it was almost like some game from outer
space. �

Onoprienko, hands up, in jail (AP/Wide World)

Onoprienko informed investigators that he had a vision
from god, was commanded to murder, and just nine days later killed a
family of four, before burning the house down. All the victims were shot
with his gun. He claimed that while fleeing the scene, he was spotted
by a man on the road and decided to kill him as well, so as not to leave
any living witnesses that could later identify him or place him at the
scene. Less than a month later, on January 6, 1996 Onoprienko told
investigators, that he killed four more people in three separate
incidents. He was hanging out near the Berdyansk-Dnieprovskaya highway
and decided to stop cars and kill the drivers. Onoprienko stated that he
murdered four travelers that day - a Navy ensign named Kasai, a taxi
driver named Savitsky, and a kolkhoz cook named Kochergina. To me it was
like hunting. Hunting people down, he explained. I would be sitting,
bored, with nothing to do. And then suddenly this idea would get into my
head. I would do everything to get it out of my mind, but I couldn't.
It was stronger than me. So I would get in the car or catch a train and
go out to kill.

Commanded to Kill

Anatoly Onoprienko waited just 11 days after the highway
murders before killing again. On January 17, 1996, he drove to
Bratkovichi and broke into a home owned by the Pilat family. I look at
it very simply, he told investigators. As an animal. I watched all this
as an animal would stare at a sheep. He shot five in all, including a
six-year-old boy. Following the murder, just before daybreak, he set the
house ablaze prior to leaving. While making his get away, he was
spotted by two witnesses, a 27-year-old female railroad worker named
Kondzela, and a 56-year-old man named Zakharko. He wasted little time
and shot them both in cold blood.
Less than two weeks
later, on January 30, 1996, in the Fastova, Kievskaya Oblast region,
Onoprienko shot and killed a 28-year-old nurse named Marusina, along
with her two young sons and a 32-year-old male visitor named
Zagranichniy. He told investigators that he could not stop himself and
was obsessed with killing.
A month after the Fastova
murders, on February 19, 1996, Onoprienko traveled to Olevsk,
Zhitomirskaya Oblast, and broke into the home of the Dubchak family. He
shot the father and son, and mauled the mother and daughter to death
with a hammer before leaving. He stated that the young girl had
witnessed him murder her parents and was praying when he walked into her
room. Seconds before I smashed her head, I ordered her to show me where
they kept their money, he said. She looked at me with an angry, defiant
stare and said, No, I won't. That strength was incredible. But I felt
nothing.
On February 27, 1996, Onoprienko said that
he drove to Malina, in the Lvivskaya Oblast region and broke into the
Bodnarchuk family home. He shot the husband and wife to death and then
murdered their two daughters, aged seven and eight. Rather than shooting
the young children, he hacked them both to death with an axe. One hour
later, a neighboring businessman named Tsalk was wandering around
outside and Onoprienko decided to kill him as well. He shot the man and
then hacked up his corpse with the same axe he had used to murder the
children. Oh, you know, I killed them because I loved them so much,
those children, those men and women, I had to kill them, the inner voice
spoke inside my mind and heart and pushed me so hard!�
Onoprienko
claimed that his last murder occurred on March 22, 1996, when he
traveled to the small village of Busk, just outside of Bratkovichi, and
murdered the Novosad family, four in all. He shot them to death and set
their home ablaze in order to destroy any evidence. I'm not a maniac, he
said. If I were, I would have thrown myself onto you and killed you
right here. No, it's not that simple. I have been taken over by a higher
force, something telepathic or cosmic, which drove me. I am like a
rabbit in a laboratory. A part of an experiment to prove that man is
capable of murdering and learning to live with his crimes. To show that I
can cope, that I can stand anything, forget everything.
Investigators
questioned Onoprienko until 6 a.m., as he confessed to committing over
50 murders during his 3-month rampage. They spent most of their time
taking down details about each killing. There was little talk of motive,
although Onoprienko stated several times that he wanted to be studied
as a phenomenon of nature and that a higher being had commanded him to
kill.

Citizen O

The day after the initial interview with Onoprienko, Teslya
went to Lviv, where Onoprienko had been moved, and began a 5-day series
of one-on-one interviews with his suspect. Teslya called Onoprienko the
most perplexing person I've ever interviewed. The suspect told Teslya he
was commanded by God to kill, and that he had been chosen as a superior
specimen. He claimed he could wield strong hypnotic powers, control
animals through telepathy and stop his heart with his mind. I told him
that I thought his hypnotic powers were interesting, and asked him, for
my benefit, if he could try them on me, Teslya said. But he said that it
only worked with weak people, and I wasn't a weak enough person.
Onoprienko
revealed that he had previously spent time in a Kiev hospital for
schizophrenia, a lead that Teslya, as an Lviv investigator, was not
allowed to pursue. The statement was interesting because immediately
following the arrest, Kiev Interior Ministry investigator Alexander
Tevashchenko said that Onoprienko - then identified as "Citizen O" - was
an outpatient whose therapists knew he was a killer. Teslya later
stated that he knew nothing about that side of the case, and the Kiev
investigators have yet to release any further information regarding it
since the initial statement.
On Friday, April 19,
1996, the investigation was taken out of Teslya's hands and turned over
to federal Interior Ministry investigators. When his week of questioning
the suspect was over, Teslya said he had concluded Onoprienko was
genuinely insane and had acted alone. There have been many rumors that
he was part of a gang, but my feeling is that his discussions of his
motives, and of his special powers, were not fabricated. I can be wrong,
but that's what I think, he said. Plus, just thinking rationally, I
don't think anyone but a single killer could have pulled off so many
murders. In a gang, someone talks, another drinks, a third whispers
something to a girlfriend, and it's all overbut as I say, I can be
wrong.
Even though psychiatrists declared Anatoly
Onoprienko mentally fit to stand trial, the proceedings did not begin
until November of 1998. Incredibly, trials in the Ukraine cannot begin
until the defendant has read all the evidence against him, at his
leisure, and in the case of Anatoly Onoprienko there was plenty to get
through - 99 volumes of gruesome photos, showing dismembered bodies,
cars, houses and random objects Onoprienko stole from his victims.
Another reason for the delay was money. It was not until the head judge
in the trial made a televised appeal that the Ukrainian government
agreed to allocate the necessary funds for a lengthy trial.
On
November 23, 1998, a Ukrainian court ruled that 39-year-old Anatoly
Onoprienko was mentally competent and could be held responsible for his
crimes. The regional court in Zhytomyr said that Onoprienko, Does not
suffer any psychiatric diseases, is conscious of and is in control of
the actions he commits, and does not require any extra psychiatric
examination.

Caged Justice

Deemed competent to face the charges against him,
Onoprienkos trial opened in the city of Zhytomyr, 90 miles west of Kiev
on February 12, 1999. As the proceedings began, Onoprienko, like Andrei
Chikatilo, Russia's infamous Rostov Ripper, sat in court in an iron
cage, and was spat upon and raged at by the public. Hundreds of people
huddled together in the unheated courtroom were angered, Let us tear him
apart, shouted a woman from the back of the court room just before the
hearing started, adding, He does not deserve to be shot. He needs to die
a slow and agonizing death. Afraid that the crowd might take the law
into their own hands, police searched bags and made everyone pass
through an airport-style metal detector before continuing. Many of those
attending the hearing said they were afraid that the killer would be
sentenced to only 15 years in prison - the maximum sentence possible
under Ukrainian law, except for capital punishment.
While
in court, Onoprienko had very little to say. Asked if he would like to
make a statement he shrugged his shoulders and replied, No, nothing.
Informed of his legal rights he growled, This is your law. When asked to
state his nationality, he said, None. When Judge Dmitry Lipsky said
this was impossible, Onoprienko rolled his eyes and replied, Well,
according to law enforcement officers, I'm Ukrainian.
The
defendant claimed he felt like a robot driven for years by a dark force
and argued that he should not be tried until authorities could
determine the source. You are not able to take me as I am, he shouted at
Judge Dmytro Lypsky. You do not see all the good I am going to do, and
you will never understand me, he said. This is a great force that
controls this hall as well. You will never understand this. Maybe only
your grandchildren will understand.
Onoprienko's
lawyer, Ruslan Moshkovsky, who said he did not contest his client's
guilt, blamed ineptitude of investigators for the extent of his rampage
and asked that his childhood in the orphanage be viewed as an
extenuating circumstance. Nonetheless, Prosecutor Yury Ignatenko
countered that examinations of Onoprienko's mental health during the
investigation had overturned an independent diagnosis of schizophrenia
made before his arrest, and a further test ordered by the court
confirmed his current mental health. The prosecutor said Onoprienko's
motives lay in his own violent nature. In every society there have been
and are people who due to their innate natures can kill, and there are
those who will never do that, he added. People demand how come he killed
so many people. But why not, if conditions make it possible?...
Onoprienko led a double life, and that is the main thing.
Onoprienko
told the court that he had been driven by a devil, higher powers and
mysterious voices. He assured the court he was guilty of all charges
against him, however insisted that he felt no remorse. I would kill
today in spite of anything, Anatoly told the court. Today I am a beast
of Satan.
Following 100 volumes of shocking evidence
and the defendants own admissions, closing arguments began in April of
1999. Prosecutor Yury Ignatenko wasted little time in demanding the
death sentence, In view of the extreme danger posed by (Anatoly)
Onoprienko as a person, I consider that the punishment for him must also
be extreme -- in the form of the death sentence, Yury Ignatenko told
the court in his concluding speech.
Onoprienko's
lawyer Ruslan Moshkovsky, once again tried to play on the sympathy of
the court as he began his own closing arguments, My defendant was from
the age of four deprived of motherly love, and the absence of care which
is necessary for the formation of a real man," Moshkovsky said. I
appeal to the court...to soften the punishment.
With the trial now over, court was adjourned to await the judges ultimate verdict.

Epilogue

After
just 3 hours of deliberation, Judge Dmytro Lypsky called the court back
into session. Onoprienko stood head bent, staring at the floor of his
metal cage as the sentence was read. In line with Ukraines criminal
code, Onoprienko is sentenced to the death penalty by shooting, Judge
Lypsky announced to the court.
In his final statement
to the court, Onoprienko exclaimed, I've robbed and killed, but I'm a
robot, I don't feel anything, I've been close to death so many times
that it's even interesting for me now to venture into the afterworld, to
see what is there, after this death.��

Onoprienko on videotape in jail (AP/Wide World)

Thank goodness that's over, said a secretary leaving the hearing.
The
death sentence ruling put the Ukraine in an awkward position. Under its
obligations as a Council of Europe member, they had committed to
abolishing capital punishment. Nonetheless, both the public and the
politicians argued that the Onoprienko case was an exception.�

Following his sentencing, Onoprienko, the media dubbed Terminator, gave a lengthy interview to a London Times reporter. During their meeting, Onoprienko reminisced about the murders he had committed.
I
started preparing for prison life a long time ago -- I fasted, did
yoga, I am not afraid of death, he said. Death for me is nothing.
Naturally, I would prefer the death penalty. I have absolutely no
interest in relations with people. I have betrayed them.
The
first time I killed, I shot down a deer in the woods. I was in my early
twenties and I recall feeling very upset when I saw it dead. I couldn't
explain why I had done it, and I felt sorry for it. I never had that
feeling again.

Leonid Kuchma, Ukranian president

If I am ever let out, I will start killing again, but
this time it will be worse, ten times worse. The urge is there. Seize
this chance because I am being groomed to serve Satan. After what I have
learnt out there, I have no competitors in my field. And if I am not
killed I will escape from this jail and the first thing I'll do is find
Kuchma (the Ukrainian president) and hang him from a tree by his
testicles.
Onoprienko's accomplice in the first set
of murders, 36-year-old Serhiy Rogozin, was sentenced to 13 years in
prison. �Anatoly Onoprienko currently resides on death row as
authorities are still looking into a string of additional murders that
took place between 1989 and 1995. Since there is a gap in Onoprienko's
life during that time that he will not discuss and which cannot be
accounted for, he remains a suspect in them.